The word “happiness” can have a fascinating effect on the human person. At the mere mention of the word, the heart can be stirred into motion, the mind can be brought to attention, and the entire person can be said to expect or anticipate something good. The notion of happiness brings to mind the reality that there is something beyond ourselves but within our experience that will satisfy some longing in our lives. We desire to be happy for its own sake; every decision we make and action we undertake is for the sake of being happy. In this way, happiness is the fulfillment of the heart’s desire, even the most central desire, making human experience fruitful and worthwhile.
Of course, what makes us happy is not immediately clear; the desire is deeply felt, but the satisfaction is hardly realized. We are often pulled to and fro by the good things perceived in the created world, thinking that these things will bring us happiness; but alas, they do not. We nonetheless remain focused on these things and pursue them, despite the fact that they only bring a feeling of contentment that soon fades. We chase the shadows of a happiness that is not there. It is as if we can get caught in an illusion, one that can hardly be broken on our own, in which we focus on the things in the world out of a desire for happiness but find ourselves unsatisfied. In our pursuit of worldly happiness, we are left empty.
In this context, God shatters our illusion: “I am intensely jealous for Zion, stirred to jealous wrath for her. Thus says the Lord: I will return to Zion, and I will dwell within Jerusalem” (Zech 8:2-3). This is fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ, who says to us in today’s Gospel, “whoever receives me receives the one who sent me” (Lk 9:48). God created us for himself out of love, so when we forget him and become distracted by the good things of his creation, he is stirred to an intense jealousy for our hearts. The Son has been sent into the world in order to call us, who have wandered far from the goodness of our Creator, back into loving relationship with the Father.
By following Jesus Christ, we enter into the relationship of the Father and the Son, and it is there that we find the fulfillment of our desire for happiness. As St. Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.” By virtue of our conformity with the Son, our hearts are filled and satisfied with the love that the Father has poured upon his beloved Son from all eternity. God shatters our illusion of self-attained happiness so that he can unite us to himself and satisfy our hearts with his love, thereby giving us an everlasting happiness and peace.
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